


Unexpectedly

by rutherfords (seblaiens)



Series: dragon age DnD [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 05:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11571123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seblaiens/pseuds/rutherfords
Summary: A Tevinter Altus and a Qunari Beresaad, and all they're doing is have a civil conversation?





	Unexpectedly

Yulia has spent the last hour watching Hulda get progressively more drunk, staring deeply into her ale and trying to block every attempt at consoling her. She’s tried expressing her sympathy, trying to get the dwarf to trust her by mentioning her political work with the embassy in Minrathous, but that had only seemed to push her farther away - and Yulia can’t blame her. Obviously something awful must have happened back in Orzammar to make her leave her home. So instead she opts to watch quietly as Rowan still tries to make Hulda feel better about herself. 

There’s no wine in her hand this time - she’s opted to not drink tonight, remembering the sharp pain in her head she’s had when waking up the last few morning. The mansion they’re staying it has grand windows, letting in a lot of sun into her spacious bedroom, and the curtains are thin. Being so close to the Empire, the mansion has something particularly Orlesian about it, complete with a lack of practicality surrendered in favour of fashion. As pretty as it looks, Yulia prefers the heavy blackout curtains she had bought for her quarters back in Tevinter. 

A change in the murmur in the Tavern makes her head snap up from where she’s been studying her fingernails. Roam and Sataari are back, faces set in a grim expression. They didn’t find out anything useful then, Yulia gathers as she scoots her chair closer to Rowan, making space around the table. They should look happier, she thinks, after advancing to the final round of the melee tournament. 

They order their drinks and fill in the group on their new discoveries while waiting. Yulia bites her lip when they talk about yet another dead dwarf, with his throat slit just like the one before him. Murders just seem to pile up around the tournament, and she’d feel much better about it if there was no cult from her home country involved. Why nobody of the group had suspected her of anything yet is beyond her, but she’s glad that they seem to trust her enough to not think of her as an accomplice simply because of her heritage.

“For healing me.”

Yulia looks up at Sataari when he speaks. He’s pouring her a glass of wine, and from the label she can see that it’s one of the more expensive bottles Cumberland has to offer. 

“No problem,” Yulia answers, still surprised as she accepts the glass, eyeing it warily before taking a sip. “I didn’t think you would let me, after you wouldn’t let the Circle mages touch you.”

“They are different. I do not know them.”

“You barely know me. And I’m an evil ‘vint, aren’t I?” she chuckles dryly, keeping her eyes on the glass. 

“You are not like the others. You are not a blood mage.” 

_ Not yet _ , Yulia thinks grimly. Her father’s taught her much, but she’s never taken a blade against herself or another person. Nobody in the Imperium would dare touch her, knowing her father and her fiancé - there hasn’t been a need yet. If things continue going south in Cumberland, there might soon be one coming up. There is nobody here to protect her.

“I’m not a particularly good healer.”

“It has healed well enough,” Sataari says pointing at where the wound on his chest had been. It still looks tender, pinkish against the grey of his skin. Yulia reaches out to run her finger over it, but stops when she realises what she’s about to do. Touching him when he’s in pain is one thing, but just running her fingers over his naked chest is something else, entirely. 

“It looks so… pink,” she mentions. She’s never seen a qunari before Sataari, only heard about them in stories or saw paintings in them in history books. There had never been a point where she had asked herself if they bled like humans, felt pain like them. She almost laughs at the indoctrination they had all received back in Tevinter, painting the Qunari as savages with low intelligence. Sataari doesn’t seem to be like that, and he’s shown her no more animosity than she had shown him. “Does it still hurt?”

“I can endure the pain,” Sataari answers, almost looking proud of himself. He should be proud, Yulia thinks. His win in the tournament had been spectacular, and the whole crowd had been transfixed by the spectacle of a Qunari fighting an Avaar. There are more scars on his body, countless small ones beyond counting, but she can clearly see the outline of a chain lightning spell on his torso.

“Right.” Yulia nods. She doesn’t understand him, but she’s worked in politics long enough to know that she doesn’t need to understand someone’s culture to respectfully deal with it. It had been hard at first, getting used to the dwarves mistrust of anything human and magic, but she’s built trust with the representatives from the embassy. She feels a pang in her chest when she thinks about her vacant place on her desk at her work place. 

She wants to say more, but the words get stuck in her throat, so she just sips her wine instead. There are so many questions she wants to ask about the Qunari, things she suspects are greatly exaggerated or flat out lies spread by the people of her homeland to squash any feelings of kinship with the beasts that attack their homelands every few decades. She used to stand on her balcony sometimes, staring out over the ocean, knowing that, in the distance, there was Seheron, where her people and the Qunari were still bitterly at war. It wouldn’t even take a day of travel from her home to the island. 

He’s fought mages before. He must have been on Seheron. 

“Sataari…” she says, but trails off when the conversation between the others get heated. His name feels weird on her tongue, and she realises it’s the first time she’s spoken it aloud. He looks at her for a few seconds, before turning back to the argument unfolding in front of them, and Yulia looks back down at her fingernails. 

There’s enough time to get to know everyone once dwarves aren’t turning up dead anymore and the stress of the tourney is over. Who knows, they might all go their separate way afterwards, and she’d feel stupid for getting too close to someone just for them to leave for their home country again, leaving her behind.

It’s better to keep her distance.


End file.
